I feel as sorry for the Clintons as one can feel for any couple reported to have earned $109 million in the last seven years. They are in an impossible political position because a lot of that money is interpretable as being in the ambiguous category of influence seeking.
The least objectionable payments to the Clintons are those in which the host made a payment for a Bill Clinton speech and then made money on the speech. (Payments for speeches by U.S. Senators and House members have been against the law for a good number of years, dramatically reducing the availability of cogent speeches by Washington insiders, and helping to create a scarcity that enriches journalists and former insiders in general as well as the Clintons.)
A synagogue near my legislative district paid Clinton his fee, then charged admission, and then made far more money than they had ever made at a fundraising event. The Clinton speech in this case was clearly worth the price paid for it; the large number of people willing to pay to hear it established a market value for it.
But--even here--objections can be raised. Members of synagogues tend to favor pro-Israel outcomes, and opponents of Israel can be expected to react harshly to Clinton working to both enrich himself and synagogue treasuries. Members of Jewish communities would similarly be dissatisfied if Clinton similarly gave market-defensible paid speeches at mosques.
The second least objectionable payments are those profits and fees made from involvements in business, largely with his friend Ron Burkle. Here there may or may not be a market based justification for each of the transactions in which Clinton earned money, but one can expect that investigative reporters will lovingly pour over each detail in the hope of striking gold, both literally and figuratively.
The most objectionable payments are those which have little or no market-based justification. Speeches made to conventions with a stable number of attendees and speeches made to gatherings of friends or associates or business leaders in which the charge for admission was far less than the cost of the speech all can be criticized for seeking to buy influence for some future benefit.
How much does Hillary's service in the Senate and status as a possible President increase the value of Bill's speeches? That can have no precise answer, but it is hard to see how it would not have an incremental effect.
As an Obama delegate candidate in PA-1, I cannot say I am a neutral observer. Nor can I say the issues here are clear in black and white. But ethics issues are more than black and white questions about whether one or more laws have been violated. They are questions of purpose, motives, and effects.
What the purposes, motivations, and effects of the Clinton money-making activities have been now, and will be in the future, will inevitably be subject to painful and painstaking examination. It may not be Whitewater all over again, but it will likely not be very pleasant for the Clintons or for the Democratic Party.
Suppose Clinton says he will abstain from all money making activities while Hillary is President? That too creates problems, because that will feed the fears of the growing number of people that he will be the defacto President and a Hillary Clinton Administation will in effect be his third term.
Hillary Clinton has a team of skilled operatives, and they will need all the skill and luck they can muster to talk themselves of the inevitable questions that will be raised here.
The desire to become wealthy is part of the American dream. But, as many lottery winners and other distressed millionaires learn, there can be a downside in terms of envy and distrust aroused. The Clintons will be experiencing that downside shortly if they have not done so already.
In 1992, faced with polling results that had him as the Democratic nominee running in third place behind third party candidate Ross Perot as well as President Bush, Clinton successfully worked to refurbish his image.
One of the things he did was make clear that he was not rich, even though he attended Oxford, and earned degrees from Georgetown and Yale. He emphasized his modest family backround and modest earnings and net worth as a way to establish his close roots with the American people.
That will be a lot harder to do now, with Hillary Clinton trailing Barack Obama late in the primary season.